IRVING, Texas, Oct. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- During its third quarter conference call this morning, EFJ, Inc. (Nasdaq: EFJI) announced its new technology strategy and roadmap as well as related structural and tactical changes and said that these changes are beginning to be implemented during the current fourth quarter. The entire call, including a video presentation that discusses the major components of change and addresses why the changes are being made at this time is available at http://www.efji.com.
Company Chairman and CEO, Michael Jalbert , said that the company would
leverage the technology it has grown and acquired and, in partnership with
other enterprises, would market comprehensive solutions rather than just sell
hardware products. In concert with this strategy, the Company will be
consolidated from three separate entities into one company with one corporate
team and one operating team. Jalbert said the anticipated cost savings will
be in the range of
Jalbert originally announced that the Company would adopt a new technology
roadmap during the Company's second quarter conference call three months ago.
He said that the new plan has been developed over a period of time, beginning
with the company's realization in 2006 that there was going to be a
convergence of voice, data and video and that it wanted to expand beyond
selling just voice-centric products. He said that vision led to the Company
raising
Jalbert said that the company would focus on offering solutions related to mission critical communications, interoperability, video surveillance, wireless sensor networks, and after-incident communications. "The more we deal with our clients, the more we hear from them that they want solutions, not just products," he said. To respond to that need, he said EFJ would work in partnership with such enterprises as Cisco, Honeywell, and others. Its marketing efforts will concentrate on the Federal marketplace expanded to include agencies other than the Department of Defense, which has been its primary customer; state and local governments, where the company has recently begun to achieve new success; and industrial customers seeking to use wireless solutions for process monitoring and controls, exemplified by a recently announced deal whereby it will supply its multinode product as part of Honeywell's OneWireless(TM) universal industrial wireless mesh network solution.
Jalbert said that he considered the company's core technologies to be in the areas of land mobile radios, mesh data networks, security systems, and geospatial information system middleware. In respect to each core technology, he said that the company's radio platform will be made more flexible to respond to customer's specific needs, the company's data networks will be enhanced with WiMAX and satellite communications, security offerings will be enhanced with high level certifications, and location-based and context-aware solutions will be offered with EFJ's middleware and sensor network capabilities. "We expect at least two new products a year, beginning in 2008," Jalbert said. "These products could be for our own infrastructure, for sale as part of a solution, or new platforms."
"The synergies that exist between our technologies and our people necessitate being one company," Jalbert said. Specific personnel announcements will be made over the next several weeks.
Jalbert said, "Our goal is to take market share in our existing markets, win new customers in markets where we haven't sold before, and become more of an international player."
About EFJ, Inc.
Headquartered in Irving, Texas, EFJ, Inc. focuses on innovating, developing and marketing the highest quality secure communications solutions to organizations whose mission is to protect and save lives. The Company's customers include first responders in public safety and public service, the federal government, and industrial organizations. The Company's products are marketed under the EFJohnson, 3e Technologies International, and Transcrypt International names. For more information, visit http://www.efji.com.
Safe Harbor
Certain matters discussed in this press release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, our expectations on revenues, net income before income taxes, non-cash compensation expense and margin improvement for the business. These forward- looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed, suggested or implied by the forward-looking statements due to a number of risk factors including, but not limited to, the progress of the 800 MHz reconfiguration program, our ability to increase our margin at our Private Wireless segment, the percentage of backlog which is filled during a period, our reliance on third-party suppliers, our ability to realize efficiencies from consolidation of our businesses, the level of demand for the Company's products and services, the timely procurement of necessary manufacturing components which meet our specifications, the timing of future product development, the actual operational expense and warranty expense experienced, dependence on continued funding of governmental agency programs, and other risks detailed in the Company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2006 . The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.
SOURCE EFJ, Inc.
